Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, Harold Edgeworth Butler (Translator), 1.6.2

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[2] Authority as a rule we derive from orators and historians. For poets, owing to the necessities of metre, are allowed a certain licence except in cases where they deliberately choose one of two expressions, when both are metrically possible, as for instance in imo de stirpe recisum and aeriae quo congessere palumbes or silice in nuda¹ and the like. The judgment of a supreme orator is placed on the same level as reason, and even error brings no disgrace, if it result from treading in the footsteps of such distinguished guides.

Institutio Oratoria. Quintilian. Harold Edgeworth Butler (Translator). Cambridge, Mass.. 1920-1922.

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Current edition Perseus

Institutio Oratoria (English) (Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.)

Editions (1)

Institutio Oratoria Perseus (Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, editor. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.) — 1.6.2 focus

[2] auctoritas ab oratoribus vel historicis peti solet; nam poetas metri necessitas excusat, nisi si quando nihil impediente in utroque modulatione pedum alterum malunt, qualia sunt, imo de stirpe recisum, et aëriae quo congessere palumbes et silice in nuda et similia; cum summorum in eloquentia virorum iudicium pro ratione, et velut error honestus est magnos duces sequentibus.

Notes on the current edition

Institutio Oratoria

1. Aen. xii. 208:

cutaway from the lowest root.

Ecl. iii. 69:

where airy doves have made their nest.

Ecl. i. 15:

on the naked rock.

Stirps, palumbes and silex are usually masculine.

Quintilian Institutio Oratoria 1.6.2

Harold Edgeworth Butler (Translator)

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